Matthew Reeve opened the door to Dani and Easton. In his forties, he was tall and athletic with a wide chest and a face that was dominated by a heavily chiselled jaw. Dani had her ID card at the ready and did the introductions. They’d called in advance to prep the parents about the reason for the visit and Matthew said little, just ushered them inside. His wife, Barbara, was in an armchair in the floral-inspired lounge. She looked sunken and hollow. In Dani’s experience it was the way all mothers looked when they learned of the death of one of their sons or daughters. Even Dani, who’d suffered more than most, couldn’t quite imagine what that pain must feel like.

‘Please take a seat,’ Matthew said.

Dani and Easton sat next to each other on a three-seater sofa. Barbara offered them hot drinks – as a courtesy more than anything, Dani decided, and both she and Easton politely declined. Matthew sat in a chair next to his wife and reached his hand out onto hers. She didn’t react at all. In fact Dani hadn’t even seen the woman blink yet. She could quite easily have passed for a waxwork.

‘We attended an address this morning on Rotton Park Road,’ Dani said. ‘We believe that’s where your son, Paul, lived?’

‘Yes. He did. Does,’ Matthew said.

‘I’m very sorry to have to tell you that the body of a young man was found there. We have reason to believe it was your son.’

Dani noticed Barbara Reeve flinch, but she held herself together.

‘We’ll need you to come and perform a formal identification of the body at a later time, but for now it would be useful if you could provide confirmation based on a photo of the deceased. The picture I’m about to show you… this won’t be easy for you, but I’d like you to tell me if this is your son.’

Dani nodded to Easton who took out his phone, found the close-up of the dead man’s face, and passed the phone over to the Reeves. Matthew took it in his hand, took one glance and looked to his wife. She was staring at him. He nodded to her, and she flicked her eyes to the screen for just a split second before she whipped them away again. She broke down in tears.

‘Mr Reeve, is that your son?’ Dani asked.

‘Yes.’

‘You’re absolutely sure.’

‘It’s Paul,’ he said as a tear escaped his eye and ran down his cheek.

The foursome remained seated in the lounge. For minutes no one had moved. Dani and Easton were giving the Reeves the time they needed to process the death of their son, but Dani wanted to push on. There were questions she needed to ask. If they’d let her.

‘What happened to him?’ Barbara asked, looking up at Dani.